ARAB AFFAIRS - Mar 27 - Tunis Calls Off Summit.

In a statement read by his deputy, Tunisian FM Habib Ben Yahya tells delegates the Mar 29-30 Arab League summit in Tunis is called off. (Shocked by a decision taken abruptly by Tunisian Pres. Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, delegates from the 22 member-states, including Arafat's PA, staggered back to the Sheraton hotel in Tunis later in the evening with solemn looks on their faces. Their preparatory meetings were for the first summit of Arab rulers since the Iraq war. Ben Yahya's letter said the decision was taken for "an accumulation of reasons". The Tunis move reinforced the image of a divided and ineffective Arab world. Arab League Sec-Gen Amr Moussa told reporters: "Certainly this is not one of our best moments". Pres. Ben Ali had been reluctant to host the summit in the first place. Averse to taking risks and used to controlling every aspect of his country's political life, he wanted to ensure the regional meeting would be a triumph and a showcase for his government. During a visit to the White House in Feb., Bin Ali had assured Pres. Bush that he would push for democratisation at the Tunis summit in line with the Greater Middle East Initiative - GMEI - a revised version of which the US was to present to a G8 summit in the American state of Georgia next June. But with the Arabs trying to recover from the shock of the Iraq war and facing a Palestinian-Israeli crisis as well as American pressure for political reforms, the Tunis summit was destined to be a testing experience; and Ben Ali was determined to avert a fiasco. Israel's March 22 assassination of Hamas leader Shaikh Ahmad Yassin had provoked outrage in the region and complicated plans to relaunch in Tunis the Saudi-backed Arab peace initiative adopted by the March 2002 Beirut summit. A charter for reforming the dysfunctional Arab League, originally proposed by Saudi Arabia and backed by Egypt and Syria, had sparked loud protests from smaller Arab states in the Gulf and North Africa and had been watered down to the point where it was virtually emptied of its substance. To counter the American GMEI move, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia and Yemen had rushed to propose their own reform initiatives to be adopted at the summit and presented instead by the region to the G8. By March 26, the start of the preparatory meetings, the first blow to the summit came when Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah announced he would not attend. Bahrain, Oman and the UAE followed the Saudi lead. But Moussa was adamant the summit would go ahead. On March 27, delegates were reporting generally polite discussions - partly explained by the absence of Saddam's ousted Baathist regime, with Iraq supposed to be represented by a delegation under US-appointed IGC member and president for March, Ayatollah Mohammed Bahr Al-Ulum. But a sense of malaise permeated the meetings. Several hours had been lost in the morning on discussions of how the Arab League would involve itself in a Frankfurt book festival later this year. Then the various proposals on domestic reforms - including a Ben Ali plan in which democracy was mentioned - were being combined into one declaration of principles vague enough to please the most reluctant governments; that greatly upset the Tunisian ruler. Equally contentious was the discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict and how to reactivate the Arab peace initiative that offered Israel normal ties with all Arab states in return for a withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands.

Syria and Lebanon balked at Jordanian and Palestinian insistence that the revival of the proposal should be linked to implementation of the US-backed road map for Palestinian-Israeli peace. By the early evening, however, Ben Ali had calculated that it was safer to cancel the summit. Palestinian FM Nabil Shaath said: "There were fewer and fewer leaders coming and Tunis was offended that its paper on reforms was not adopted. Because time was running, it was also afraid the summit would end in disaster. But I'm not sure that had the meetings continued we would not have reached decisions". Ben Yahya's statement, an attempt to absolve itself of blame, criticised the preparatory meetings' failure to adopt a more far-reaching democratisation agenda, as Tunis had suggested. Ben Ali's regime saw no contradiction between this insistence and the fact that it had, on the same day, blocked human rights activists from holding a protest to demand press freedom. In the lobby of the Sheraton hotel, there was this burning question: Who had torpedoed the Tunis summit? Besides Sharon, Bush was high on the list of suspects in a region where the US now is blamed for all Arab ills. Some assumed the Saudis, unhappy with the agenda, had lobbied hard for a postponement.

Others blamed the collapse on Syrian intransigence. Damascus, meanwhile, said Tunisia was responsible for an "entirely inexplicable" decision. As expressions of criticism and regret poured in from Arab capitals during the night, many delegations knew they would face with embarrassment their own people, as well as the US administration which had been expecting the summit to emerge with proposals for internal reform. One senior Arab official at the Sheraton lobby was quoted as saying: "We look ridiculous". Some Arab commentators said the Ben Ali move also heralded the demise of the Arab League, created by the British occupation troops about a century ago. Over the years, the league has given Arabs almost nothing; its functions have been confined to issuing useless statements and organising useless meetings. Palestinian minister Saeb Erekat told Al Jazeera: The summit's collapse was a green light "for more unilateral Israeli actions to...destroy the peace process and the Palestinian Authority". A Lebanese housewife was quoted as saying: "We keep going from bad to worse. Our leaders are an embarrassment to us". It was the first time an Arab summit has been cancelled since 1983, when Arabs were divided over Syria's opposition to Arafat and Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war. Ben Yaha's statement said a number of ministers had rejected Tunis' proposals for "democratic progress, protection of human rights, consolidation of the status of women, and the role of civil society". Four main items were scheduled to be studied at the summit - reforms in the Arab world, reforming the Arab League, the Palestinian issue and Iraq.

A hardline bloc led by Syria and Lebanon wanted the summit to focus more on the Arab-Israeli conflict than on reforms, and they blocked a PA push for a pro-Palestinian resolution. Then Syria and Egypt suggested postponing the reform plans until next year's summit in Algeria, and others like Saudi Arabia said that was "a good idea". Bin Yahya's statement said: "Tunisia strongly regrets the postponement of this summit on which Arab and international opinion has pinned great hopes considering the delicate situation through which the Arab nation is going and the deadlock of the Palestinian issue after the recent tragic developments" - referring to Israel's Mar 22 assassination of Hamas leader Shaikh Yassin. A commentary by the official Tunis Afrique Presse said: "Tunisia has underlined the necessity to emphasise the Arabs' commitment to the values of tolerance and concord and to the principle of dialogue among civilisations, their total rejection of extremism, fanaticism, violence and terrorism". It said Arab states missed "this opportunity to appear to the world as a great civilisational group". This and other Tunis statements said it was "surprising" the draft reform plan, agreed upon earlier by Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, did not include "any mention of the word 'democracy'".

Egypt responded through its own official agency, Mena, insisting the "Tunisian bombshell came as the foreign ministers were making progress towards agreement...". Mena said Pres. Ben Ali even refused to meet Arab FMs who wanted an explanation for his "surprising decision". It added: "When the ministers insisted on seeing the president, Bin Yahya told them 'the President has flu and cannot receive you'". Mena said Moussa told reporters that postponing the summit will have "dangerous consequences" for joint Arab action. The summit failure was the "most painful" blow to joint Arab action in years, said Mahmoud Al Rimawi, editor of Al Rai, largest Jordanian daily, adding: "I could well signal the beginning of a new era where each country would pursue its own course of policies regardless of the interests of others".